The Paradise Mystery

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER III. ST. WRYTHA'S STAIR

  The summarily dismissed assistant, thus left alone, stood for a momentin evident deep thought before he moved towards Ransford's desk andpicked up the cheque. He looked at it carefully, folded it neatly, andput it away in his pocket-book; after that he proceeded to collect afew possessions of his own, instruments, books from various drawers andshelves. He was placing these things in a small hand-bag when a gentletap sounded on the door by which patients approached the surgery.

  "Come in!" he called.

  There was no response, although the door was slightly ajar; instead,the knock was repeated, and at that Bryce crossed the room and flung thedoor open.

  A man stood outside--an elderly, slight-figured, quiet-looking man, wholooked at Bryce with a half-deprecating, half-nervous air; the air of aman who was shy in manner and evidently fearful of seeming to intrude.Bryce's quick, observant eyes took him in at a glance, noting a muchworn and lined face, thin grey hair and tired eyes; this was a man, hesaid to himself, who had seen trouble. Nevertheless, not a poor man,if his general appearance was anything to go by--he was well and evenexpensively dressed, in the style generally affected by well-to-domerchants and city men; his clothes were fashionably cut, his silk hatwas new, his linen and boots irreproachable; a fine diamond pin gleamedin his carefully arranged cravat. Why, then, this unmistakably furtiveand half-frightened manner--which seemed to be somewhat relieved at thesight of Bryce?

  "Is this--is Dr. Ransford within?" asked the stranger. "I was told thisis his house."

  "Dr. Ransford is out," replied Bryce. "Just gone out--not five minutesago. This is his surgery. Can I be of use?"

  The man hesitated, looking beyond Bryce into the room.

  "No, thank you," he said at last. "I--no, I don't want professionalservices--I just called to see Dr. Ransford--I--the fact is, I once knewsome one of that name. It's no matter--at present."

  Bryce stepped outside and pointed across the Close.

  "Dr. Ransford," he said, "went over there--I rather fancy he's gone tothe Deanery--he has a case there. If you went through Paradise, you'dvery likely meet him coming back--the Deanery is the big house in thefar corner yonder."

  The stranger followed Bryce's outstretched finger.

  "Paradise?" he said, wonderingly. "What's that?"

  Bryce pointed to a long stretch of grey wall which projected from thesouth wall of the Cathedral into the Close.

  "It's an enclosure--between the south porch and the transept," he said."Full of old tombs and trees--a sort of wilderness--why called ParadiseI don't know. There's a short cut across it to the Deanery and that partof the Close--through that archway you see over there. If you go across,you're almost sure to meet Dr. Ransford."

  "I'm much obliged to you," said the stranger. "Thank you."

  He turned away in the direction which Bryce had indicated, and Brycewent back--only to go out again and call after him.

  "If you don't meet him, shall I say you'll call again?" he asked."And--what name?"

  The stranger shook his head.

  "It's immaterial," he answered. "I'll see him--somewhere--or later. Manythanks."

  He went on his way towards Paradise, and Bryce returned to the surgeryand completed his preparations for departure. And in the course ofthings, he more than once looked through the window into the garden andsaw Mary Bewery still walking and talking with young Sackville Bonham.

  "No," he muttered to himself. "I won't trouble to exchange anyfarewells--not because of Ransford's hint, but because there's no need.If Ransford thinks he's going to drive me out of Wrychester before Ichoose to go he's badly mistaken--it'll be time enough to say farewellwhen I take my departure--and that won't be just yet. Now I wonderwho that old chap was? Knew some one of Ransford's name once, did he?Probably Ransford himself--in which case he knows more of Ransford thananybody in Wrychester knows--for nobody in Wrychester knows anythingbeyond a few years back. No, Dr. Ransford!--no farewells--to anybody! Amere departure--till I turn up again."

  But Bryce was not to get away from the old house without something inthe nature of a farewell. As he walked out of the surgery by the sideentrance, Mary Bewery, who had just parted from young Bonham in thegarden and was about to visit her dogs in the stable yard, came along:she and Bryce met, face to face. The girl flushed, not so much fromembarrassment as from vexation; Bryce, cool as ever, showed no sign ofany embarrassment. Instead, he laughed, tapping the hand-bag which hecarried under one arm.

  "Summarily turned out--as if I had been stealing the spoons," heremarked. "I go--with my small belongings. This is my first reward--fordevotion."

  "I have nothing to say to you," answered Mary, sweeping by him with ahighly displeased glance. "Except that you have brought it on yourself."

  "A very feminine retort!" observed Bryce. "But--there is no malice init? Your anger won't last more than--shall we say a day?"

  "You may say what you like," she replied. "As I just said, I havenothing to say--now or at any time."

  "That remains to be proved," remarked Bryce. "The phrase is one of muchelasticity. But for the present--I go!"

  He walked out into the Close, and without as much as a backward lookstruck off across the sward in the direction in which, ten minutesbefore, he had sent the strange man. He had rooms in a quiet lane on thefarther side of the Cathedral precinct, and his present intention was togo to them to leave his bag and make some further arrangements. He hadno idea of leaving Wrychester--he knew of another doctor in the city whowas badly in need of help: he would go to him--would tell him, if needbe, why he had left Ransford. He had a multiplicity of schemes and ideasin his head, and he began to consider some of them as he stepped out ofthe Close into the ancient enclosure which all Wrychester folk knew byits time-honoured name of Paradise. This was really an outer court ofthe old cloisters; its high walls, half-ruinous, almost wholly coveredwith ivy, shut in an expanse of turf, liberally furnished with yew andcypress and studded with tombs and gravestones. In one corner rose agigantic elm; in another a broken stairway of stone led to a doorway sethigh in the walls of the nave; across the enclosure itself was a pathwaywhich led towards the houses in the south-east corner of the Close. Itwas a curious, gloomy spot, little frequented save by people who wentacross it rather than follow the gravelled paths outside, and it wasuntenanted when Bryce stepped into it. But just as he walked through thearchway he saw Ransford. Ransford was emerging hastily from a posterndoor in the west porch--so hastily that Bryce checked himself to look athim. And though they were twenty yards apart, Bryce saw that Ransford'sface was very pale, almost to whiteness, and that he was unmistakablyagitated. Instantly he connected that agitation with the man who hadcome to the surgery door.

  "They've met!" mused Bryce, and stopped, staring after Ransford'sretreating figure. "Now what is it in that man's mere presence that'supset Ransford? He looks like a man who's had a nasty, unexpectedshock--a bad 'un!"

  He remained standing in the archway, gazing after the retreating figure,until Ransford had disappeared within his own garden; still wonderingand speculating, but not about his own affairs, he turned acrossParadise at last and made his way towards the farther corner. There wasa little wicket-gate there, set in the ivied wall; as Bryce opened it,a man in the working dress of a stone-mason, whom he recognized as beingone of the master-mason's staff, came running out of the bushes.His face, too, was white, and his eyes were big with excitement. Andrecognizing Bryce, he halted, panting.

  "What is it, Varner?" asked Bryce calmly. "Something happened?"

  The man swept his hand across his forehead as if he were dazed, and thenjerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  "A man!" he gasped. "Foot of St. Wrytha's Stair there, doctor. Dead--orif not dead, near it. I saw it!"

  Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.

  "You saw--what?" he demanded.

  "Saw him--fall. Or rather--flung!" panted Varner. "Somebody--couldn'tsee who, nohow--flung him right through yon doo
rway, up there. He fellright over the steps--crash!" Bryce looked over the tops of the yews andcypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed--alow, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet atleast from the ground.

  "You saw him--thrown!" he exclaimed. "Thrown--down there? Impossible,man!"

  "Tell you I saw it!" asserted Varner doggedly. "I was looking at oneof those old tombs yonder--somebody wants some repairs doing--and thejackdaws were making such a to-do up there by the roof I glanced up atthem. And I saw this man thrown through that door--fairly flung throughit! God!--do you think I could mistake my own eyes?"

  "Did you see who flung him?" asked Bryce.

  "No; I saw a hand--just for one second, as it might be--by the edge ofthe doorway," answered Varner. "I was more for watching him! He sortof tottered for a second on the step outside the door, turned over andscreamed--I can hear it now!--and crashed down on the flags beneath."

  "How long since?" demanded Bryce.

  "Five or six minutes," said Varner. "I rushed to him--I've been doingwhat I could. But I saw it was no good, so I was running for help--"

  Bryce pushed him towards the bushes by which they were standing.

  "Take me to him," he said. "Come on!"

  Varner turned back, making a way through the cypresses. He led Bryce tothe foot of the great wall of the nave. There in the corner formed bythe angle of nave and transept, on a broad pavement of flagstones, laythe body of a man crumpled up in a curiously twisted position. And withone glance, even before he reached it, Bryce knew what body it was--thatof the man who had come, shyly and furtively, to Ransford's door.

  "Look!" exclaimed Varner, suddenly pointing. "He's stirring!"

  Bryce, whose gaze was fastened on the twisted figure, saw a slightmovement which relaxed as suddenly as it had occurred. Then camestillness. "That's the end!" he muttered. "The man's dead! I'llguarantee that before I put a hand on him. Dead enough!" he went on, ashe reached the body and dropped on one knee by it. "His neck's broken."

  The mason bent down and looked, half-curiously, half-fearfully, at thedead man. Then he glanced upward--at the open door high above them inthe walls.

  "It's a fearful drop, that, sir," he said. "And he came down with suchviolence. You're sure it's over with him?"

  "He died just as we came up," answered Bryce. "That movement we saw wasthe last effort--involuntary, of course. Look here, Varner!--you'll haveto get help. You'd better fetch some of the cathedral people--some ofthe vergers. No!" he broke off suddenly, as the low strains of an organcame from within the great building. "They're just beginning the morningservice--of course, it's ten o'clock. Never mind them--go straight tothe police. Bring them back--I'll stay here."

  The mason turned off towards the gateway of the Close, and whilethe strains of the organ grew louder, Bryce bent over the dead man,wondering what had really happened. Thrown from an open doorway in theclerestory over St. Wrytha's Stair?--it seemed almost impossible! But asudden thought struck him: supposing two men, wishing to talk in privacyunobserved, had gone up into the clerestory of the Cathedral--asthey easily could, by more than one door, by more than one stair--andsupposing they had quarrelled, and one of them had flung or pushedthe other through the door above--what then? And on the heels of thatthought hurried another--this man, now lying dead, had come to thesurgery, seeking Ransford, and had subsequently gone away, presumablyin search of him, and Bryce himself had just seen Ransford, obviouslyagitated and pale of cheek, leaving the west porch; what did it allmean? what was the apparently obvious inference to be drawn? Here wasthe stranger dead--and Varner was ready to swear that he had seenhim thrown, flung violently, through the door forty feet above. Thatwas--murder! Then--who was the murderer?

  Bryce looked carefully and narrowly around him. Now that Varner had goneaway, there was not a human being in sight, nor anywhere near, so far ashe knew. On one side of him and the dead man rose the grey walls of naveand transept; on the other, the cypresses and yews rising amongst theold tombs and monuments. Assuring himself that no one was near, no eyewatching, he slipped his hand into the inner breast pocket of the deadman's smart morning coat. Such a man must carry papers--papers wouldreveal something. And Bryce wanted to know anything--anything that wouldgive information and let him into whatever secret there might be betweenthis unlucky stranger and Ransford.

  But the breast pocket was empty; there was no pocket-book there; therewere no papers there. Nor were there any papers elsewhere in the otherpockets which he hastily searched: there was not even a card with a nameon it. But he found a purse, full of money--banknotes, gold, silver--andin one of its compartments a scrap of paper folded curiously, after thefashion of the cocked-hat missives of another age in which envelopes hadnot been invented. Bryce hurriedly unfolded this, and after one glanceat its contents, made haste to secrete it in his own pocket. He had onlyjust done this and put back the purse when he heard Varner's voice, anda second later the voice of Inspector Mitchington, a well-known policeofficial. And at that Bryce sprang to his feet, and when the mason andhis companions emerged from the bushes was standing looking thoughtfullyat the dead man. He turned to Mitchington with a shake of the head.

  "Dead!" he said in a hushed voice. "Died as we got to him. Broken--allto pieces, I should say--neck and spine certainly. I suppose Varner'stold you what he saw."

  Mitchington, a sharp-eyed, dark-complexioned man, quick of movement,nodded, and after one glance at the body, looked up at the open doorwayhigh above them.

  "That the door?" he asked, turning to Varner. "And--it was open?"

  "It's always open," answered Varner. "Least-ways, it's been open, likethat, all this spring, to my knowledge."

  "What is there behind it?" inquired Mitchington.

  "Sort of gallery, that runs all round the nave," replied Varner."Clerestory gallery--that's what it is. People can go up there and walkaround--lots of 'em do--tourists, you know. There's two or three ways upto it--staircases in the turrets."

  Mitchington turned to one of the two constables who had followed him.

  "Let Varner show you the way up there," he said. "Go quietly--don'tmake any fuss--the morning service is just beginning. Say nothing toanybody--just take a quiet look around, along that gallery, especiallynear the door there--and come back here." He looked down at the dead managain as the mason and the constable went away. "A stranger, I shouldthink, doctor--tourist, most likely. But--thrown down! That man Varneris positive. That looks like foul play."

  "Oh, there's no doubt of that!" asserted Bryce. "You'll have to gointo that pretty deeply. But the inside of the Cathedral's like arabbit-warren, and whoever threw the man through that doorway no doubtknew how to slip away unobserved. Now, you'll have to remove the body tothe mortuary, of course--but just let me fetch Dr. Ransford first.I'd like some other medical man than myself to see him before he'smoved--I'll have him here in five minutes."

  He turned away through the bushes and emerging upon the Close ran acrossthe lawns in the direction of the house which he had left not twentyminutes before. He had but one idea as he ran--he wanted to see Ransfordface to face with the dead man--wanted to watch him, to observe him,to see how he looked, how he behaved. Then he, Bryce, wouldknow--something.

  But he was to know something before that. He opened the door of thesurgery suddenly, but with his usual quietness of touch. And on thethreshold he paused. Ransford, the very picture of despair, stood justwithin, his face convulsed, beating one hand upon the other.